Now that the holiday season is underway and the galleries of Borderstan are closing out the year with their December shows, we have one more to report on that should be on your 2013 calendar.

Although not a traditional gallery space, TTR Sotheby’s International Realty (1506 14th St NW) is now showing their latest artist in their emerging artist showcase series. Now through January, Mark Parascandola will show his powerful and mind opening photography.

The work in this show is a retrospective of Parascandola’s use of architecture as a focus for his explorations. Mark Parascandola, a PhD epidemiologist by training, uses photography to explore patterns of movement in human populations, focusing on architecture as evidence of often-invisible social, environmental, and economic processes.

Parascandola lives, works and is now showing within the borders of Borderstan. He was also recently selected as a finalist for the 2011 Sondheim Prize, and four of his images were chosen by Corcoran Gallery of Art curator Amanda Maddox for inclusion in her section of the FotoDC Flash exhibit. Mark creates his own limited-edition digital prints using pigment inks on watercolor paper.

TTR Sotheby’s International Realty is proud to showcase his work from Thursday, November 29th until January 11 at their office at 14th and P Street NW. The closing reception will be on January 10 from 6 to 8pm. For more info about Parascandola’s work, visit www.parascandola.com

A replica of Aqaba, a Red Sea port, constructed for the filming of Lawrence of Arabia. Click the photo to read more about the image on the artist’s website.

From Eliza French. Follow her on Twitter @elizaenbref; email her at eliza[AT]borderstan.com.

Borderstan photographer Mark Parascandola‘s latest exhibition, Once Upon a Time in Almería, opens this Thursday, September 13 at the Spanish Embassy in Foggy Bottom. The collection of digital prints documents the unexpected landscape and surreal scenery in the desert of the Spanish Almería region.

Parascandola sought to capture this particular location in his native country because of its unique history as a set for several popular movies during the 1960s and 1970s. Filmmakers transformed the blank slate of the desert into America, Egypt, and everywhere in between for movies such as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Patton, and Cleopatra. Remnants of various fictional settings still remain scattered throughout the landscape, and Parascandola captures the transformative power still lingering in these ruins.

The photographer often chronicles the story of place and his artistic obsession with architecture manifests itself throughout this work. “People think of architecture as being static or permanent, but it changes over time depending on who takes over the space and how it is affected by the surrounding environment,” Parascandola told Borderstan’s Cecile Oreste in January 2011.

If you’re willing to venture outside of the neighborhood, you can see Once Upon a Time at the Spanish Embassy from Thursday through November 16. The Embassy will also host an accompanying video and film program during the course of the exhibition.

Although photographer Mark Parascandola has lived in the D.C. area for more than 20 years, he rarely takes pictures in the District. Most of his photography is inspired by his travels to Chile, Miami, China and his mother’s homeland of Spain. Currently, he is working on a project photographing movie sets left over from the so-called Spaghetti Westerns filmed in Almeria in the 1960s and 1970s. These films include classics such as El Condor and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Parascandola enjoys taking pictures that tell the narrative of a place rather than the story of an individual or group of people. Consequently, much of his work focuses on the theme of abandoned architecture/buildings and transitional spaces.

“People think of architecture as being static or permanent, but it changes over time depending on who takes over the space and how it is affected by the surrounding environment,” Parascandola said.

In addition to his current film set project, his photographs of Miami Marine Stadium and the Carabanchel Prison in Madrid also explore this concept of abandoned architecture. After the structures were no longer in use, both were taken over by graffiti artists and transformed into an impromptu gallery of art. Carabanchel Prison has been torn down since Parascandola last photographed the structure and Miami Marine Stadium is endangered as well, but his images remain a record of how the structures once were.